When you find out your friends child has been murdered you don’t know what to say or do because your heartbroken for them and thankful that you don’t know that pain firsthand.
There is guilt that comes with it because you know someone is in hell and you don’t want to demean, belittle or diminish their pain.
You know this horror as the monster under the bed and the dread that walks during the night. It is the thing your rational mind says is statistically unlikely but it doesn’t stop the voice that says the reason the hair sticks up on the back of your neck isn’t just imagination.
It is evolution and instinct.
It is nature protecting itself and making sure the species survives.
So you do what you can with what you have to make sense of it and remind yourself to look out for those who are paying the biggest price and suffering the biggest lost.
And none of it makes sense anyway because you can’t accept stories about a plan we can’t understand or comments that G-d needed another angel.
So you put a few words down and hope maybe they’ll make sense and or help you figure shit out…maybe.
A House Full Of California Girls
In the midst of the senseless you end up with a house full of California girls.
Because some of your daughter’s closest friends have flown out for an extended weekend and you can’t help but smile because your baby girl is beaming and so are her friends.
In the blink of an eye she moves from telling you how weird and embarrassing you are to asking for help.
And then as you walk by the room you hear them talking about boys and for a moment you want to drag your feet to hear and learn more…but you don’t.
Later your baby girl will tell you she heard you walking and made a point to be quiet because you don’t need to know everything.
You’ll smile and remind her that she asked you to set the air mattress up and she’ll give you a look that makes it clear that she knows you are right, but she isn’t going to say so.
And somewhere in that moment you’ll see a flash of the baby she was so very long ago and a glimpse of the woman she is turning into.
For just a moment it will all blur and you’ll silently ask her to slow down, there is no need to run so fast into the future.
But it won’t matter because she wants to be just a little bit older. She wants to be able to drive and do more adult things with her friends and you understand because you remember.
And you’ll see a time coming when your kids will be out and you’ll get to revisit the life you once had.
That will give you mixed emotions because the idea of being an empty-nester is kind of exciting and kind of disappointing too.
It is something you work towards, teaching your children how to grow up and be independent but when it happens it feels like a sign that you’re closer to old than young.
And maybe you are not ready for that, doesn’t matter whether you hear or think that age is a state of mind either.
It just feels…odd.
Set Your Soul Free
This is the hour in which our souls are set free. The time in which we choose to let go and follow them whither they wish to go or hold onto to what is for just a little bit longer.
The moment in which you hear yourself murmur something about souls lost in the madness and found again knowing you have let go of logic.
Logic has its time and place but no standing to adjudicate certain matters.
These are the times in which you stand under an angry sky with your palms upraised offering to take what is given.
These are the moments in which you let Poseidon’s rage do what it will with you knowing there is no reason to have face in being safely shepherded to shore but believing it will happen any way.
You set your soul free and let it find its way back.
Because it has a purpose other than being shackled to a wall or imprisoned in a cage and if you let it fly you just might discover the what and why of it.
And that is worth something.
